Preliminary hearing in Fortuna home invasion begins

A victim of the Fortuna home invasion that sent five to the hospital for bear spray exposure testified Tuesday that she dropped her 5-year-old son off a balcony to waiting neighbors at the preliminary hearing for the four men accused of breaking into her apartment in search of stolen marijuana.

The hearing will determine if there is enough evidence to hold James O'Neil, Wyatt Williamson, Gregory Stephens and Trevor Bohn over for trial. All four men have pleaded not guilty to 11 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit a crime, assault with a caustic chemical and false imprisonment by violence.

During her testimony, Perdeda Cowan described a chaotic scene on the morning of Sept. 19 when four men entered the three-bedroom apartment she shared with her boyfriend Eli Scott, her three children and another family of five. She said the men demanded "their pot" and ultimately sprayed several in the apartment with the bear pepper spray before fleeing.

Cowan said when she asked what they were talking about, one of the men sprayed her directly in the face with the bear pepper spray from "less than five or six feet away."

Cowan testified she was choking and blinded by the spray and went to open a window before running to the apartment's back porch, where she began calling for help. Soon a small crowd of apartment residents had formed below, she said.

Cowan testified she could hear one of the men telling Scott, "You are coming with us." Cowan said she wasn't clear on the details, but believed an older child that lived in the apartment attempted to round up the younger ones into a back room. She testified the door had a "large hole in it from a previous altercation" and wasn't much of a barrier.

At one point, Cowan said she felt her 5-year-old son clinging to her legs. She said she picked him, and holding his hands, lowered him from the second-story balcony "as close as I could to the people below before I let go." He was uninjured.

"All I could hear was the sound of the bear mace canisters discharging and children crying," she said. "I didn't want him going back into the apartment."

Sometime between when she went out onto the back porch and left the apartment, Cowan said her door was kicked in by neighbors responding to her calls for help. The four men were gone.

After exiting the apartment and locating her three children -- one of whom was at a neighbor's when the incident occurred -- Cowan testified she got into a neighbor's shower with the 5-year-old.

"I remember my son saying to me, 'Mommy, I feel like I am going to die in here,'" she said.

Cowan, Scott, her 5-year-old son, as well as Cowan's babysitter were taken by ambulance to a local hospital and treated for the bear pepper spray. A neighbor drove Cowan's 3-year-old daughter to the hospital, where she was also treated.

While being cross-examined, Cowan waived her rights to self-incrimination and was appointed a public defender after Stephens' attorney Patrik Griego asked her about an incident at another residence that occurred two days prior to the Sept. 19 home invasion.

Deputy District Attorney Luke Brownfield told the court that the district attorney's office had reached an "informal agreement" not to pursue charges against Cowan related to testimony she provided during Griego's questioning.

Referring to a 108-page volume of photos that were apparently stills taken from a surveillance camera at a property, Griego asked Cowan to identify the individuals, and describe what they were doing.

Cowan said the individuals pictured were herself, Scott and a second woman who lived in the apartment when the Sept. 19 incident took place. Cowan said they had gone to the property to pick up a hash processing machine and other belongings for a friend of Scott's, who had "just finished a marijuana job" on the property.

After showing Cowan a series of photos with Scott and the second woman apparently attempting to enter the residence through another door, Griego asked if Cowan knew whether Scott had brought burglary tools to the property.

"No," she said.

"Are you aware of this happening before?" Griego asked.

"No," she said.

When asked where she was, Cowan said she was "probably in the car."

"I understood that we were there to get the hash machine and that is it," she testified.

Cowan said they loaded the hash machine up in the car, and she was dropped off at school.

Griego later asked Cowan if she thought the men in her apartment might have been referring to the trip she'd taken to get the hash machine.